Innovation and Collaboration: The BIF Way

An interview with BIF Chief Catalyst Saul Kaplan is posted on Steve Hardy’s Creative Generalist blog where the two talk about everything from Rhode Island’s position as a national innovation hot spot to the real world innovation lab BIF is developing to what it takes to really drive systems change.

If you’re looking to break down silos and cross boundaries, this sample from the interview extols the necessity for thick skin:

Steve: What skills/training/experience do you personally rely on most to span such silos and to foster collaboration?

Saul: Very thick skin, a strong belief that there is always a better way, the ability to thrive with ambiguity, actually enjoying steep learning curves, and did I say very thick skin. Everyone loves innovation until it impacts them. I used to think that we could enable large-scale change and create more innovators by proselytizing. Innovation rhetoric is everywhere and yet we still don’t seem to be progressing beyond the buzzwords. I now believe in sorting the world to identify the innovators across every imaginable discipline and silo and then finding ways to connect them in purposeful ways. I think we will make more progress that way. That is what BIF is all about.

Read the interview